Concern over deforestation has risen sharply over the last decade as the environmental and social impacts have become more widely understood. As a result, combating the illegal timber trade has moved higher up the agenda for governments, NGOs and the legitimate timber industry worldwide.

The outcome in an increasing number of timber-consuming countries and regions is legislation to eradicate illegal wood from their supply chains. At the same time, a growing body of producer countries has signed up to Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) under the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan.

These bilateral accords provide a framework for improving forest sector governance and developing timber legality assurance systems. Once in place, the latter will allow countries to export FLEGT-licensed timber, which will have access the EU without further legality risk assessment under the EU Timber Regulation.

The consensus is that both impetus for consumer country timber legality regulation and the supplier country following of FLEGT can only now grow. And this, in turn, is fuelling another conversation; that, as they develop, the two have increasing potential to interrelate worldwide. While FLEGT licensing was conceived to work in tandem with the EUTR, there is growing liaison between EUTR enforcement authorities and their counterparts behind anti-illegal timber legislation elsewhere, and between the latter and VPA-signatory countries. The result is the view that the FLEGT initiative could inform these other regimes too, or contribute to the proof of legality they require.

Global illegal timber crackdown
Evidence that anti-illegal timber regulation is set to become an ever more important factor in international trade is clear.

There were concerns in America that its legislation, the pioneering Lacey Act introduced in 2008, might be diluted.

"After the Lacey prosecution of Gibson Guitars, it became an over-regulation poster child and bills were launched to weaken it," said Kate Horner of the US Environmental Investigation Agency.

However, she added, an alliance of NGOs, politicians and industry defeated such moves, and enforcement has since stepped up.

"There’s now more investment in it, including in its online import declaration processing system, which has provided a wealth of data, including evidence of timber imported in non compliance with log bans."

Another key Lacey development is the investigation into Lumber Liquidators’ imports of Chinese hardwood flooring. "This shows Lacey can tackle mass market products, as well as low volume, high value items featured in Gibson," said Ms Horner.

Jamey French of US hardwood supplier Northland Forest Products is a long-time backer of Lacey, both for environmental reasons and the legislation’s capacity to prevent illegal imports from tarnishing and undercutting US domestic producers. He’s also heartened by the Lumber Liquidators probe.

"Lacey’s budget remains too low, but this case shows enforcement will happen," he said.

Question marks have also been raised over the EUTR’s effectiveness. There have been no prosecutions yet and wide disparity is reported in the capabilities of the enforcement agencies, or Competent Authorities (CAs), in different EU states. But the picture seems to be improving. More CAs are undertaking EUTR inspections, the German authority, BLE, has seized wenge logs during investigations into a suspected breach, and its UK counterpart, the National Measurement Office (NMO), says it’s now "ready to show the EUTR has teeth".

"We’re also increasing liaison across Europe to share information and expertise," said NMO head of enforcement Michael Kearney.

International co-operation
CAs have also had training sessions with Interpol’s anti-illegal timber operation Project Leaf. And underlining growing international exchange in this field, other meetings between the European bodies and the police agency included representatives of US, Australian, Norwegian and Swiss organisations.

"The aim is a global illegal timber tip-off service," said Project Leaf’s Davyth Stewart.

Australia’s Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation is less developed. Although the law was passed in November 2012, importers don’t have to start providing declarations to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) until this November. However, the enforcement framework is falling into place.

"And DAFF says it intends to encourage those with obligations under the Regulation to voluntarily comply with the due diligence requirements," said Stephen Mitchell of the Australian Timber Development Association.

Japan’s Goho-Wood system, which requires proof of timber legality, is well established, but so far obligatory for public project suppliers only. However, at the last report 8,554 businesses were certified under the system, accounting for 7.7 million m³ of processed wood and 921,000m³ of imported logs a year.

According to industry expert Shizuka Yasui of UGAS Ehime University, there is also a lobby for Goho to become a wider national system.

"A forestry agency representative publicly raised the possibility of Japan developing similar legislation to the EU and US," she said.

Meanwhile China has worked with the EU on forest law enforcement and governance under a Bilateral Co-ordination Mechanism and its State Forest Administration has also been evaluating national legality verification.

South Korea introduced rules on sustainable wood use last year, and its Forest Service will consider anti-illegal trade steps after studying US, EU and Australian regulations. And Switzerland looks set to turn its Environmental Protection Act into a "Swiss EUTR".

FLEGT momentum building
Momentum around FLEGT is also building, with 15 supplier countries now engaged with the VPA process, which entails broad civil, private and NGO stakeholder engagement as well as establishment of rigorous governance and enforcement regimes. Six of these have signed their Agreements and are at final implementation stage: Cameroon, Indonesia,

Republic of Congo, Ghana, Liberia and Central African Republic. And Ghana and Indonesia say they expect to issue first FLEGT licences soon, recently holding events in Brussels and London to publicise their achievements under the initiative and promote the market value of FLEGT-licensed material to buyers.

One major FLEGT milestone for Ghana has been the development of its highly regarded national timber tracking software system.

"In March the system rolled out across all companies and forest reserves," said Nurudeen Idrissu of the Ghanaian Forestry Commission, "and we’ve also achieved broad stakeholder participation and introduced policies to ensure domestic market demand for legal timber."

Indonesia has also made strides, including the audit of 18 million ha of forest, and 700 timber companies under its SVLK legality assurance system. According to Andy Roby, a VPA facilitator in Indonesia, its VPA process has also "empowered civil society and simplified a multiplicity of forest laws".

"The police like it as it’s made the rules easy to understand and enforce," he said.

Once the first licences are issued and their EU market access value proven (Indonesia predicts they will give it a 6% export boost), FLEGT is expected to gain added momentum.

It will be at this stage too, that the initiative’s relevance to other markets with anti-illegal timber regulation will become clearer.

Both Indonesia and Ghana are optimistic FLEGT licences will facilitate exports elsewhere, with an Indonesian delegation reportedly visiting the US to discuss the relationship between FLEGT and Lacey.

Other more impartial observers also see the initiative having potentially wider value.

"Importers will have to assess other information, but under the Australian Regulation, FLEGT-licensed timber will be recognised as low risk," said Mr Mitchell. "So no green light, but an easier pathway."

Switzerland’s Timber Industry Federation also expects FLEGT licences to have similar value under its prospective legislation, and in China, the initiative has been evaluated from both anti-illegal timber and commercial perspectives, in terms of importing licensed timber for EU-destined manufactured goods.

"When EU customers request additional legality proof, it should help our manufacturers if they are [using] FLEGT-licensed timber," said Gao Ya of the Chinese Timber and Wood Products Distribution Association.

Japanese officials said FLEGT-licensed timber would face further scrutiny under Goho- Wood, but did not rule out it passing the test.

According to Ms Horner, FLEGT’s status under Lacey was not clear-cut either, but also not without potential relevance. "No document can ensure Lacey compliance, it’s not written that way. But where FLEGT is embedded in a country’s law, any timber it exports without a licence would definitely be non-compliant."

Following talks between EU, Australian, US and Swiss agencies, Svetla Atanasova of the European Commission thought international views on FLEGT would also evolve.

"As the system’s robustness is proved, other countries may give more consideration to FLEGT licences in their due diligence," she said. "Another mutual challenge is helping importers find out about applicable legislation in the place of harvest and FLEGT’s ambitious architecture here could also be useful for US and Australian importers."

Guyana and Honduras offer more proof of belief in FLEGT’s wider value, with both negotiating VPAs, despite shipping more wood elsewhere than to the EU, notably the US.

Ramon Alvarez Lazzaroni, head of the Honduras Lumbermen’s Association, said his industry believed FLEGT licensing would help it meet other countries’ legality systems – as well as boost exports to the EU.

Interestingly, he also raised an attraction of FLEGT for VPA countries other than facilitating overseas trade; its value in ensuring forest products sector legality as an end in itself.

"The driving force behind our VPA is improving governance to reduce deforestation and support our legal, sustainable forest operations," he said.